


Ghost

by pellucid



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pellucid/pseuds/pellucid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Daniel/Janet missing scenes for "Ripple Effect" (the season 9 ep with AU Janet). Warning for emo!Daniel (I was young, and it was a phase...). :)</p>
<p>Originally written in January 2006.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Daniel/Janet missing scenes for "Ripple Effect" (the season 9 ep with AU Janet). Warning for emo!Daniel (I was young, and it was a phase...). :)
> 
> Originally written in January 2006.

Landry should have warned him. To walk into the room and just find her standing there like that—Daniel had gone from stunned to yammering idiot in about five seconds. He was pretty sure Teal'c had taken over the important parts of the conversation while he babbled and stared. Her hair was different—shorter and lighter, he thought—and her skin was more tanned. He wondered if his memory was somehow faulty, or if the differences were there to remind him that she wasn't actually his Janet.

Landry should have warned him, but when Daniel calmed down enough to be rational, he realized that Landry probably wouldn't have known. Coffee breaks in the mess, movie nights with Cassie, "movie nights" without Cassie, daring quickies in a level 19 storage closet that he hasn't been able to walk past in two years. These were the fabric of their relationship, and they didn't make it into the mission reports Landry would have read. The rumor mill briefed Elizabeth Weir when she was briefly in command: there had been an awkward "I'm sorry for your loss" conversation at one point. But by the time Landry arrived, the rumor mill had long forgotten about the tragic romance of Daniel Jackson and Janet Fraiser.

The initial interview with Janet didn't take long, Teal'c doing most of the talking. Afterwards Daniel bolted, ignoring Mitchell as he passed him in the hall.

"What's wrong with him?" he heard Mitchell ask.

Daniel didn't wait around to hear Teal'c field that question.

***

He had to smile when he heard what she had demanded of Landry. Count on Janet Fraiser not to back down, ever. He had been avoiding her for reasons he would rather not analyze, but as news of her waltzing into the general's office for a showdown rippled across the base, he found his legs moving in her direction, as if on their own accord.

"Hi, Daniel," she said, inviting him in. "Is General Landry going ahead with the plan?"

She was behaving so _normally_ , and he couldn't get his head around the idea that he could knock on a door and find her standing on the other side.

"Daniel? Are you okay?" He realized he was staring again, and her concerned look was so familiar that he felt his stomach knotting.

"I, uh, yeah. I just—" This wasn't going well. "I'm sorry, Janet, I should go." 

She touched his forearm to stop him, and he froze. "I'm not going to bite, you know," she said softly. "Do you want to tell me why you're here?"

He wasn't really sure why he was there, but he couldn't stop himself from answering. "You're so much like her, you know. I thought I was getting over her—had gotten over her. But now I don't know."

Janet's eyes widened and she flushed a little. "You and…"

"Yeah. We, it—" He registered her stunned look and stepped back, towards the door. "I'm sorry. You probably don't feel that way about your, uh, the me from your world. I should go."

"I never really got a chance to feel that way," she said hurriedly. "I mean, the Daniel from my world is still married to Sha're."

Again Daniel found himself frozen and speechless. "Sha're is alive?" he finally managed.

Janet nodded. "She was rescued from the Goa'uld a few years ago. She and Daniel have been on Earth ever since. They've got a couple of kids."

He exhaled forcefully. "Both of you in the same universe. Kids, too. And the lucky bastard has no idea, I'll bet. No idea what I've lost." Was the room actually spinning?

"Come sit down, Daniel." She took his hand and led him to the edge of the bed, and even though he knew he should stop himself, that if he got in further his heart might never recover, she was right there holding his hand, and it _fit_. He didn't let go.

"Your Sha're died?" she asked tentatively, after a moment.

"About six years ago. Teal'c shot Amonet to save me. God, that feels like another life." She didn't say anything but continued sitting beside him, holding his hand. "You—Janet, I mean—had always been a good friend, but after a while I started feeling…more. For her. We dated some. It was more casual than it should have been, really, but we thought we had so much time. Then I ascended. When I came back, I was worried about hurting her again—I know that every time I step through that gate I might not come back—but she said it was worth it. We were worth it. We had six months before P3X. I never thought it would be her."

He felt raw, exposed, exhausted, and he pulled his glasses off, rubbing his face, his other hand still tightly gripping Janet's. She continued to hold on, and at the same time began to rub a soothing pattern over the muscles of his back. He knew she wouldn't say anything until she was sure it was the right thing to say, and part of him begged her to offer some trite condolence just so he would know she wasn't _really_ Janet.

"I fell for you, you know," she said finally, her voice close and inaccessible. "Him. Daniel." Her hand stilled on his back, and he turned his head to look at her. "It was very early on, when Sha're was still missing," she explained. "I tried to talk myself out of it, like you do when you can't have the person you want. There was something there, some what ifs, I guess. He kissed me once, after Machello gave everyone schizophrenia." She sighed and shrugged. "Then Sha're came back, and they're happy, and she's become a dear friend. I couldn't wish things were different, but sometimes I wonder."

"There are fifteen Daniel Jacksons on this base right now," Daniel mused. "I wonder how many of them go home to Janet Fraiser. How many of them go home to Sha're. And how many of them go home alone because everyone they ever love gets taken away."

He turned her hand in his in order to trace the veins. Her hands were a little dry; she always complained that no amount of lotion could keep up with the damage the latex gloves and incessant handwashing did to her skin. She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder, and he could smell her shampoo, fresh and faintly citrus. One of techs in the gate room uses the same shampoo, and that's always bothered him.

"All the possibilities, all these universes," she said, her throat vibrating against his bicep. "I wonder who's happiest." She paused. "Probably not either of us."

He chuckled half-heartedly. "I hope not."

"We can't pick and choose, though. I wouldn't wish things were different between me and Daniel because that would mean that Sha're died, that Nick and Claire were never born. And as much as we might wish that your Janet hadn't died, we can't change the fact that she did. We have to live in the worlds we've got."

"You're in this one now," Daniel pointed out.

She lifted her head and looked at him. "I can't stay, Daniel. My whole planet needs me."

"What if you can't go home?" he asked softly.

"You really think that between fourteen of her, Sam won't figure out how to fix this?" A corner of her mouth quirked in half a sad smile. "I have to go back if I can."

He reached up and threaded his fingers through her too-short, too-light hair. "I wish you could stay," he whispered, drawing her closer, letting his lips graze her forehead, temple, the corner of her mouth.

"Me too," she breathed, and then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and she was there and his and Janet.

***

She was gone, and Daniel took refuge in the locker room, letting the steaming spray of the shower beat him back to numbness. When he shut the water off, he heard voices.

"So what's with Jackson?" Mitchell's voice asked. "He's been way off for the past three days, which I'm guessing is because of what you told me about him and Dr. Fraiser, but then he was all casual when she left. 'It was good to see you again'? Come on, Teal'c, who says that to his dead girlfriend?"

"Daniel Jackson has dealt with his grief for Doctor Fraiser by pretending that he does not feel grief. He seems to have reverted to that state again."

"Man, that is _not_ healthy."

Daniel heard his team members exit the locker room, the door slamming loudly behind them, but he stayed where he was, dripping dry in the shower stall, goosebumps pricking on his clammy skin.


End file.
